Submit your Article

The historic March 12 virtual summit between the leaders of the four QUAD members states—Australia, India, Japan, US—signals a decisive ramp-up in cooperation in a grouping mainly tasked with containing China’s spreading influence. The summit has widened collaboration within QUAD, for instance by adding a big economic component to it, and by committing to jointly work for the development and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines to low-income countries—the last step in direct challenge to China’s vaccine diplomacy. 

As the only country in the group that shares a land border with China and that is not a US alliance partner either, India occupies a unique position in the ‘Asian NATO’. India would not have agreed to add teeth to an overtly anti-China grouping had it been more assured of Beijing’s goodwill. The Chinese for their part are furious that India has agreed to ‘encircle’ China. Greater salience of QUAD, they warn, would hinder regional cooperation as it would undermine the more local groups like the BRICS and the SCO, both of which have India and China.

Commentaries in China’s state-controlled media express alarm at the QUAD’s consolidation. Addressing the virtual meet, US President Joe Biden reiterated his commitment to “free and open Indo-Pacific”, again highlighting the US goal of China’s containment. It’s easier said though. Unlike a united China, the QUAD comprises countries occupying four different parts of the globe, adding to the difficulty of collaboration. Plus, it isn’t clear QUAD member states are ready to compromise their important economic bilateral ties with China in order to pursue the grouping’s more strategic goals.

Yet the broader trend of bifurcation between the leaders of the ‘free world’ and China’s autocrats the QUAD’s consolidation signals is unmistakable. This will also have a direct impact on smaller countries near India and China. In the short term, it is hard to see how countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, all of which have been gracious recipients of Chinese cash, can be persuaded to distance themselves from their chief benefactor. There is another calculus at play as well. As much as these small countries fear China, they fear a traditionally meddlesome India even more. Ruling elites there believe only China offers a credible hedge against India’s regional ‘expansionism’. 

The rise of Chinese mercantilism aside, perhaps most worrying for democrats in the region is the creeping authoritarianism in India, the South Asian giant. Smaller democracies here mirror the political trends in India. For instance, as Modi and the BJP consolidate power by fanning sectarianism in India, Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh, the Rajapakshas in Sri Lanka and, arguably, even KP Oli in Nepal have looked to employ similar tactics to cement their hold on power. Free speech is in assault everywhere in the region. Modi’s India is no beckon of democracy other democracies in the region can look up to.

Erosion of India’s democratic credentials plays directly into China’s hands as it continuously expands its presence in South Asia by emphasizing its ‘strictly economic’ model of cooperation. The US, though important, has been too far to matter much to these smaller countries. The QUAD’s consolidation could therefore be a game-changer. For instance, in not a distant future, they may have to choose between ‘democratic’ and ‘authoritarian’ vaccines. In a sign of things to come China has eased visa rules for foreigners who have gotten Chinese jabs. Nepalis who got jabbed with India-made Covax, including this writer, need not apply.  

“Nothing is written”, concludes Fareed Zakaria’s new book ‘Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World’. As the Covid-19 pandemic tightened its noose on the world over the past year or so, the countries, instead of pooling resources and collectively fighting it, became more divided. The Trump administration said the ‘China virus’ was nothing Americans needed to fear, even as it repeatedly insinuated that the Middle Kingdom deliberately spread the virus to weaken Western countries. China, meanwhile, saw this as a cynical attempt to deflect attention from the Americans’ woeful handling of the pandemic.

As the virus spread, borders were closed even among the single-visa Schengen countries, the most integrated region on the planet. Everywhere, the suspicion of ‘germ-carrying’ foreigners heightened. When the Covid-19 virus was first detected in Nepal in January 2020, among the first demands in the country was that the open border with India be shut. All domestic and international flights were suspended later. Free flow of goods and people, the epitome of globalization, screeched to a halt.

Yet Zakaria says it’s impossible to reverse globalization and free movements of goods, people and ideas. Americans may want more goods to be produced locally to reduce their reliance on the Chinese. But, then, argues Zakaria, the manufacturing will shift from China not to Indiana but to India, another low-cost manufacturing option. Moreover, it’s also not so much a case of the Chinese taking away millions of American jobs as automation rendering them useless.  

Zakaria also plays down the idea that autocracies are better at dealing with pandemics than democracies. If so, the likes of South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan would not have handled the Covid-19 pandemic better than China. It is not the ‘quality of the government’ that matters but its ‘quality’. Nepal’s own dreadful Covid-19 response owed largely to its dysfunctional government.

The other big lesson of the pandemic was that markets are not enough to solve our most pressing problems. Amid the pandemic, without government help, hundreds of millions of people would have been left to fend for themselves and inequality would have exploded. Again, we saw both incompetence and ill-will of the Nepali private sector that wanted to import PPEs into Nepal. Also, evidence suggests that had the government not made Covid jabs free, most Nepalis would have opted out of vaccination.

And oh, remember the daily Ministry of Health Covid-19 bulletins? A dour-faced person reading out hard numbers did not inspire much confidence in people. They were rather angry at the pedantic tone. This is why as important as it is for people to trust experts, if the message is to get through, it is also incumbent upon these experts not to treat non-experts with condensation.

The other great pandemic-time transformation in Nepal was the switch to the digital. During the pandemic even the middle-aged and elderly started using their mobiles to pay their phone and electricity bills. Without Covid-19, such digitization would have taken much longer. At the same time, the forced isolation and the anxiety and depression it induced made us realize our inherent social nature: connecting over Zoom, we discovered, pales in comparison to a face-to-face meeting.

Zakaria expects the liberal international order, which has “bettered the lives of more people than any previous system humans lived in”, to endure in the post-pandemic world. For there is no alternative. He thus ends on a positive note: “The soldiers who died during World War II gave up all a chance to build a better and more peaceful world. So, too, in our times, this ugly pandemic has created the possibility for change and reform”. Yes, nothing is written. If only we learn to heed sound advice.

The Americans are the enemy, and their influence in the region must be minimized at any cost. This single logic guides China’s foreign policy under Xi Jinping. So even as the Chinese want to punish the Indians for daring to stand up to them on the border, they hold back. The fear is that a potent show of force could further solidify the already troublingly close US-India strategic ties. The same Chinese calculus may be at play in Nepal. China was unhappy that Prime Minister KP Oli was not doing enough to push the BRI projects, even as he embraced the American anti-China MCC compact. China promptly shut its two important border points with Nepal. 

But following the Biden administration’s recent efforts to alternately woo and warn the Nepali political class, the Chinese are having a rethink. PM Oli has just inaugurated the ‘China-Nepal Friendship Industrial Park’ in his home district of Jhapa. Meanwhile, a 10-billion-rupee contract for a diversion tunnel on Sunkoshi River has gone to the China Overseas Engineering Co. On China’s part, as the fear of ‘American encirclement’ grows, they have had to play nice and keep engaging and investing in the neighborhood. 

It’s a tricky balance. Even six months ago, most Chinese were unaware of their country’s checkered dealings with India. But then the border conflict spiraled to a level the Chinese state could not keep under wraps. So it belatedly acknowledged the killing of five PLA soldiers in last year’s clash near the Pangong Lake, and posthumously awarded them gallantry medals. This prompted a rabid anti-India reaction on Chinese social media, with most Chinese apparently in favor of teaching India a harsh lesson. 

Even in Nepal, China wanted to punish the Oli government. But when the American State Department strongly urged Kathmandu not to forcibly return Tibetan refugees and the US Congress voted to increase support for Tibetans, China had to recalculate. The US Ambassador to Nepal Randy Berry started visiting individual Nepali leaders to appraise them on new American priorities. The Chinese were doubly spooked. 

Thankfully for the Chinese, the Indians realize the cost of completely alienating its big neighbor to please a distant friend. (And this is exactly the case with Nepal too.) There has always been a strong anti-US lobby in India which fears giving a strong external actor like the US greater sway in its traditional backyard, not when China is already usurping the old Indian strategic space. The Modi government moreover fears the nationalist backlash should India suffer big reverses in a conflict with China. Hence there is a level of mutual readiness to de-escalate the border crisis. 

India and China are both struggling to calibrate their relations with the US. And they have relatively stable governments, which is far from the case in Nepal. As Oli’s PM chair appeared shaky, foreign powers here were already jockeying for influence. Nepal is under increasing American pressure not to act tough on the Tibetans—and the Chinese want precisely the opposite. The Indians too have outlined the ‘red lines’ Nepal cannot cross while dealing with foreign powers.  

At the end of the day, Nepal has no option but to heed the concerns of its two giant neighbors, even at the cost of alienating the US. But then Nepal diversified away from the two giant neighbors precisely to escape being swallowed up by one or the other. So, again, a difficult balancing act. Yet right now it’s hard to see Kathmandu accommodating American concerns over Chinese ones. 

Just as we do when talking about domestic politics, hyperboles are the order of the day when discussing international events. We talk of eroding democratic ideals the world over in an age of disinformation and creeping authoritarianism. As it gets harder to separate fact from fiction, people, we see, are plumping for nationalist autocrats who are experts at mining their attention. A newly-rich China is successfully exporting its illiberal ideals near and far. India, our closest friend and neighbor, is sliding towards sectarianism. What hope is there for Nepal, then, precariously lodged between the two?

So PM Oli runs roughshod over the democratic process and the new constitution, with covert support of the Indian establishment, according to some. (Earlier, it was China that was backing him.) Oli seemed to have cemented his hold on power by dissolving the sovereign parliament. The court, apparently, was already in his pockets. The constitution, meanwhile, was headed for a complete failure. Then came the Supreme Court verdict upending all his plans.    

An interesting aspect of the recent anti-Oli protests following his parliament dissolution were the symbols and slogans borrowed from abroad, most recently from Myanmar of all places. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, Nepal has been no stranger to mass anti-government protests. But the Burmese coming out on the streets against the all-powerful military rulers was a rare sight. Reminiscent of Nepal during the second Jana Andolan, Burmese civil servants have refused to work following the most recent military coup in the country as doctors have un-looped their stethoscopes and laborers have downed their tools.

Thailand is another case of an aging ruling establishment being out of step with the globe-trotting youths. Despite the country’s brutal lèse-majesté laws, millions have been protesting against the new monarch, a free-spending playboy who prefers to live in distant Germany. Coming back to India, the raucous democracy of over a billion souls has always been tough to tame. Nor are its civilizational democratic ideals easy to crush. The Modi era, as entrenched as it is, will pass, and sooner rather than later.    

China’s role in the spread of illiberalism can also be overblown. Most of its international relationships are strictly commercial, and not underpinned by any higher ideal. These ties can be sustained only so long as China can keep spending abroad lavishly. Even in Nepal, although we see some influence of Chinese money in our politics, we are far from being Hun Sen’s Cambodia.   

In fact, compared to other countries in the region, Nepal has always been a tolerant society, welcoming of outsiders. Perhaps a part of this owes to our variegated geography, which makes broad cooperation obligatory. In ancient times we acted as a bridge between two great civilizations, and we will continue to do so in greater or smaller capacity. Given our age-old coexistence of diverse faiths and beliefs, nor will it be easy to subdue our egalitarian sprit for any length of time.   

We have a vibrant civil society. New restrictions have been placed on sharing information online and on press freedom, and yet we continue to speak and engage openly. All kinds of innovative businesses are sprouting up, even amid the gloom of the Covid-19 epidemic. We now have motor roads connecting all districts and near ubiquitous access to mobile phones. Absolute poverty is in rapid decline, if only due to remittance. And because we are open by nature, we also continue to learn and adapt from events outside our borders. Our politics cannot but reflect the society we live in.

India’s Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar pitches for a realism-based Indian foreign policy in his new book, The India Way. The book dwells on India’s neighborhood, in depth, but it does not mention Nepal—not once. He writes of the need to revive SAARC in order to rekindle the spirit of regionalism in South Asia. Yet as that is currently not feasible because of an obtrusive Pakistan, he advocates for the promotion of alternate regional frameworks like BIMSTEC. 

Having previously served as India’s ambassador to both US and China as well as its foreign secretary, Jaishankar has had a ringside view of the power dynamics between the most important global actors today. He foresees more friction between these states as they increasingly turn inward. In this self-centered world order, India, he says, should abandon its traditional non-alignment for multi-alignment—ditch its old ideological hangovers in order to increase its options. 

He thinks India should play a non-reciprocal and more active role in South Asia and help regional connectivity. Separately, as a sitting foreign minister, he cannot be critical of the current Indian establishment or of other big international actors he has to deal with daily. Yet China’s rise, its greater sway in India’s immediate neighborhood, and China’s evergreen friendship with Pakistan clearly bother him. 

He wants to ditch the old ‘Dogmas of Delhi’ and forge ahead with a more pragmatic approach. Yet the fact is that Delhi’s dogmas continue to have great sway in South Asia. Ironically, in a perfect illustration of the southern neighbor’s big brother attitude, then Indian foreign secretary Jaishankar had come to Kathmandu in 2015 to lecture Nepali leaders on constitution-making. The dominant perception in New Delhi is still that South Asia is India’s inviolable backyard. 

Not that Jaishankar in unaware of the contradictions in India’s current foreign policy outlook, as he also flags in the book. But he says some contradictions are inevitable as India pursues a more realistic foreign policy. For instance, Prime Minister Modi is as comfortable jetting into Islamabad unannounced to greet Nawaz Sharif on his birthday as he is dropping bombs on Pakistani soil in retaliation for acts of terrorism.  

Of course, Jaishankar also entirely sidesteps the rise of Hindutwa and its impact on India’s foreign policy. Amit Shah’s alleged remarks about establishing BJP governments in Sri Lanka and Nepal aside, the BJP government in India does want to export Hindutwa to Nepal and reestablish the old Hindu state. Jaishankar also skips the rise of illiberalism in India and its direct or indirect export in the neighborhood. Oli for one is learning rather quickly from his nationalism-whipping, rule-bending Indian counterpart.  

There is also a clear hint that India will work closely with the US under the Indo-Pacific Strategy, as well as with the rest of the QUAD members, in what amounts to an unacknowledged admission of India’s limited capabilities to check Chinese designs in the region.  

Jaishankar is right that nationalism has gotten a boost in the post-covid world where everyone is more and more looking after their own interests. Therefore India too should not resist, he suggests, from baring its fangs in pursuit of a larger national interest. (Perhaps the blockade on Nepal was a part of the same game-plan.)

Wonderful that Jaishankar envisions a South Asia united by Indian non-reciprocity and connectivity initiatives. Yet there has always been a gulf between what India says and what it does. In fact, India’s problem with delivery is one reason the likes of Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bangladesh these days rely more on China to get things done. That perception of India being an unreliable friend will be tough to change. 

Each faction of the Nepal Communist Party has declared a ‘third people’s movement’ aimed at taming the other. Members of the civil society have made the same declaration. The assertion of the ruling NCP faction under KP Oli is clearly a gimmick to undercut the sanctity of the protests against his unconstitutional House dissolution. But what about the anti-government protestors? Do their protests herald a third people’s movement in Nepal?  

The second people’s movement in 2006 was a direct consequence of the 2001 royal massacre. The public considered King Gyanendra and his immediate family complicit in the murder of Birendra and his family. Even those who were ambivalent about the monarchy until that point suddenly developed a soft spot for the slain king—and antipathy for his younger brother. Moreover, King Birendra had accepted his constitutional status following the first people’s movement in 1990. Before that, he had agreed to a referendum on the Panchayat system. People remembered. Birendra and his family were also seen as more genial and liberal than Gyanendra (with his murky business dealings) or his son Paras (who, among his other villainous activities, had run over and killed a popular singer).

Forever carrying a cloud of suspicion over him, Gyanendra would have had a tough time even as a constitutional monarch. When he staged a coup and took over executive powers, besides the common folks, Gyanendra also ended up alienating the entire political class. He arrested Nepali intellectuals. Thus was a broad coalition against the unpopular monarch stitched together and the anti-monarchy revolution succeeded.  

Of course, Gyanendra’s unpopularity wasn’t the only factor behind the success of the second people’s movement. The decade-long Maoist conflict also played a part, as did India’s reluctance to come to the rescue of a monarch who was seen as acting against its interests. Yet all successful revolutions feature a common figure of hatred. In 2006, it was King Gyanendra in Nepal. In 2011, it was Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. All these revolutions also had a strong common agenda that united the opposition.  

Today, KP Oli presents a different case. Before the House dissolution, he was a popularly elected prime minister in the middle of his legitimate five-year term. And Oli still enjoys a level of public support, perhaps more than do Prachanda, Madhav Nepal or Sher Bahadur Deuba, his most likely replacements as prime minister. True, misguided moves like the arrest of Ram Kumari Jhakri for speaking against the country’s president will add to Oli’s unpopularity. As will the crackdown on some civil society activities before that. 

But despite all that, Oli is not—and can never be—an autocrat with absolute powers. Nor can he ever inspire the level of hatred seen against King Gyanendra in 2006. This is why the events of 2006 or 2011 are unlikely to be repeated in Nepal soon. Plus, Oli right now does not have strong external enemies who are determined to see him fail. 

Moreover, the various anti-government protestors are also divided on their agenda. Some want the parliament restored, others would settle for nothing less than a complete rewrite of the constitution. People find this motley clubbing of goals confusing. 

Yet protests often have their own momentum. For one, they can succeed because of the mounting mistakes of the rulers—and Oli is pushing it. But, again, the various shades of anti-government protestors do not have a common agenda. Most people meanwhile appear happy to wait and watch from the sidelines.

“What is India's No. 2 foreign policy challenge?” asked Happymon Jacob of Jawaharlal Nehru University in his Feb 3 tweet. “No. 1 is Rihanna.” He was ridiculing the panicky response of the Indian government to the Barbadian singer’s retweet of a CNN story. “Why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest” was all that she had written in reaction to the ongoing farmer protests in India. Later, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted her support for Indian farmers. The Indian government reacted as if it was under attack from a malicious foreign force. Its External Affairs Ministry said it was “unfortunate to see vested interest groups trying to enforce their agenda on these protests, and derail them.”

The Indian government didn’t stop there. It urged Bollywood superstars and famous cricketers to publicly denounce all such efforts to “divide India”. You could see this as exemplifying the Indian establishment’s lack of confidence. But that perhaps is not the whole story. Narendra Modi and the BJP came to power on the back of a polarizing religious agenda. Faced with a tanking economy and widespread protests, there was no easy way for Modi to wiggle out except, and once again, by inventing external enemies.

The message: Look, we are under the assault of foreign enemies and if we don’t unite behind our government, at stake will be no less than our sovereignty and national unity. If someone can pull up a conspiracy theory behind how Thunberg and other members of an international left cabal want to destabilize India, it’s a Bharat Ratna-worthy achievement in Modi’s India. Sadly, this whipping up of nationalism against external enemies, largely imagined, works everywhere, from the US, India to Nepal. 

In Nepal, bereft of any other agenda, and feeling marginalized by the intelligentsia and other political actors, KP Oli has now cottoned to Hinduism to resurrect his political career. His repeated attempts to get into India’s good books rebuffed, he is now busy needling the Ayodhya-addicted BJP establishment by claiming his country’s ownership of Lord Ram. New Delhi either supports him or it will use the BJP’s own weapon, Hinduism, to further fan anti-India flames in Nepal. For the purpose Oli has amassed a sea of online trolls, again just like Modi. Notably, back in 2017, he had come to power after successfully demonizing India over the blockade.  

Especially in today’s techno-space, it has become easy to subvert democracy. While government-sponsored trolls operate unhindered, its critics can be easily blocked and silenced. Indian leadership can’t digest a casual tweet of a foreign celebrity; Chinese leadership has to block any online mention of Tibet; and Nepali leaders expertly tweak the remarks of even remotely famous Indians as a direct attack on the country.

When important national issues are turned into personal wars, often by design, nothing short of complete demolition of the opponents will do. There is no middle ground online. Rihanna is completely innocent or a sworn enemy of India. Nepal will brook no compromise over Kalapani, all of which is indubitably ours. And, by the way, online space is certainly not for civic-minded folks. For their useless intellectualizing, they deserve to be blocked and hosed down.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi dreads open confrontation with China. Most recently, his government has been playing down the building of a ‘village’ by Chinese troops in Arunachal Pradesh. Unlike Pakistan, a far weaker military adversary that India can control to an extent, China is right now an invincible rival. The Hindu-nationalist prime minister is aware that active confrontation with China and reverses for India will make him lose face. Yet the Indian army is already preparing for the inevitable as it re-orients its forces towards China, and away from Pakistan. Whether or not Modi wants it, India and China are headed for more confrontation—and he will somehow have to deal with it. 

The Americans meanwhile want ever-closer strategic ties with India to check China’s growing influence across Asia. India at this point has no option but to accept American help as China gets more aggressive on its border. But it will be a tricky balance. There is still great reluctance in India’s strategic community about allowing America into South Asia under the Indo-Pacific framework: Why should India give the US greater leverage in its traditional backyard? 

Back here in Nepal, US Ambassador Randy Berry has been making the rounds of the houses of top Nepali political leaders, hot on the heels of a similar, much criticized house-hopping activism of the Chinese envoy, Hou Yanqi. Surely, in diplomacy, what is wrong for the Chinese is also wrong for the Americans. The US envoy is not meeting Nepali heads of state and government; he is rather currying favors from individual political leaders. This is perhaps the clearest sign that the Americans are determined to get Nepal to endorse of the MCC compact—which is quickly emerging as an indispensable part of the Indo-Pacific Strategy—at the earliest. (His Excellency knows that cannot happen without a functioning House.)

The IPS vows to come to India’s rescue in the event of a border war with China. Following the publication of the Indo-Pacific Framework, and its clear emphasis on enabling India to balance China, the Chinese too have increased their lobbying in Kathmandu against the MCC compact. How can the government of Nepal, they are asking our officials, help Americans encircle China? Earlier, the Chinese used to laugh off Indian activism in Nepal, which they saw as rather amateurish. No more. The Chinese are now determined to thwart both Indians and Americans. This Chinese need to undermine US-India co-operation at all costs; the American wish to pursue their regional interests with Indian help; and the Indian strategy of using American help while retaining its primacy—it is an impossible combination of goals. 

In this vastly changed geopolitical reality, Nepal will also have to prepare for some nightmares: more foreign funding to destabilize it; the prospect of Nepalis dying on the Indo-China front; growing Indian claims over disputed territories; another border blockade; who knows what! At the rate India-China relations are deteriorating, time may also not be far when Nepal has to choose between competing Indian and Chinese goods, everything from telecom equipment, railway gauge, vaccines, to military hardware. 

Nepal needs to be prepared for the worst. But it is far from it. During such heightened uncertainty in the region, the country does not even have a permanent government. The ruling party is split (or not), and elections seem far-far away. No wonder competing international powers are trying to build their constituencies by bulldozing diplomatic niceties.